Star Wars: New Imperial Federation

A Star Wars Role Playing Experience

Forum rules
For instructions on entering a patient in the Medical Centre, click here.

Refferrer's Name: Your name.Patient's Name: Name of injured character.Species: The species of the patient.Gender: The gender of the patient.Affiliation: Their occupation (i.e. Rebel, Imperial, Smuggler, Bounty Hunter).Health Status/Injury: State how the patient is hurt.Reason of Hospitalization: State how the injury occurred.

The hover-stretcher moved gently, gliding along on the bank of air it had created just underneath it; flanking it, three medical technicians manned the corners, positioned to guide it along, and grab it in the event that the repulsorlift system ever malfunctioned. Only three, however, manned the corners, because Azra had insisted, despite her own injuries, on taking position at one of them. In hindsight, she supposed that she couldn't necessarily blame the technician for being somewhat offended at the idea, but she had her reasons for doing so; when enumerating them for the man, she had at least been possessed of enough politeness to not directly invoke Dark Jedi privilege, but at the same time, she imagined that it was implied. What other sort of being in the Federation walked around with a lightsaber at each side, and was able to see people through a blindfold?

See with what? she reminded herself dryly. She would need the medical staff at some point, she reckoned, as it regarded her eyes. The incidents on Fwillsving--just below, yet now feeling so impossibly, inaccessibly far away--had brought that truth home with stark, startling certainty. At some point in the near future, she had decided--not right away, but soon. Seeing through the Force was all well and good, but there were obvious limitations that had been uncovered...limitations that she had certainly not enjoyed experiencing firsthand.

Turning her eyeless gaze down towards the severely wounded patient at her side, she pushed the thought aside. Her own injuries could wait--would wait, while the medical staff worked on the man she helped to escort. With her far hand, she pulled at a chain around her neck, fastened to a special charm given to her not too long ago by the Supreme Commander. The pendant came down over the front of her robes' chestplate, clinking softly; fingering it lightly, she imagined that she had a good idea of where it might better serve.

Passing through the halls, using only the Force for sight, she was keenly aware of the presence of every member of the frigate's crew. She could feel everyone...and she realized that as she was doing so, she was not just lightly hoping that the faintly familiar tingle she felt well beyond the infirmary wasn't who she thought it was.

It had been a while since a patient had come through the med bay, but the fact that they had come through escorted by another individual that was hurt. No hurt was an understatement, she was blind! Arnold cringed at the scene, a blind woman escorting a man with a giant hole in his chest. This was going to be a long evening, and then he noticed she had been allowed to keep her weapons. As he caught a glimpse of her lightsaber. This was going to be a rough evening he figured, between the hostility he had heard that the Dark Jedi always had and the condition of the patient in the bed. Arnold walked up and started off with the first thing.

"Ma'am, first off, I can clearly tell you have a high level of clearance. And from that weapon you must be a Dark Jedi. But regardless you're injured and I'm going to have to ask you to jump into the bacta tank, and do whatever it is you Dark Jedi do to heal in there. Besides walking around blind with no cane is a bit odd, the other patients need to heal. You walking stoically around while blind unassisted is very much overkill. Please go rest in the bacta tank while I work on your colleague."

Arnold began to turn to focus on the man on the bed, he turned to grab a holopad and begin to call up the man's medical history. Which was a nightmare in its own right as evidenced by his medical record with a sprawl of droid replacement parts plus previous other bruises, contusions, and assortment of other "wear and tear". Arnold began to prep up for the task at hand, and tasked a medical trainee to go grab a handful of sterilized bacta patches. As Arnold was going to have to put them inside the man's body to help the organs heal and promote healing from the inside out. While he was in a bacta tank getting some more assistance on all the external damage. He could count a multitude of lacerations, charring around the chest hole. He could only imagine what had hit this guy, it from the extent of the damage mine as well have been a fighter's poorly aimed shot at a target. As even though it seems as this man is almost more machine than man, it would seem excessive to require a fighter's cannon to bring him down.

Being aboard a small frigate felt very nostalgic for Eri, the closer knit community of officers and soldiers able to converse with one another freely as they passed one another. Larger starships were like space travelling cities, with so many people inhabiting them, it wasn't as common to see others recognize one another, save for the Captain of the vessel. In the past, Eri could have blended into crowd as a simple army private as she walked her way through the corridors from the hanger bay to the medical ward. Now however, it seemed there weren't many in the Federation who didn't recognize her face.

Truth be told, I don't see why I even need to go to medical, she thought as she entered the bright white medical ward where she was quickly greeted by a bright silver-reflective 3PO medical droid.

"Surface Marshal Ambicon," it greeted her with a slight bow, "Here for your post mission check-up."

Eri forced an easy smile, counting down the number of missions she would have to get through to finally be removed from the medical watch roster. In what was a refreshing change of events, she was actually relatively unscathed from the recent op, a few cuts and scratches this time around. "You sound as though I have a choice," Eri returned, fully aware that the droid phrased it as a statement but not passing up the opportunity to have a bit of fun.

The droid started to speak again just as Eri caught movement from deeper into the ward. The familiar appearance of Thessalia, or Azra as she preferred to be called now, was just barely visible as she hung by a doorway into an adjoining room, a waiting or surgery prep room if Eri remembered the layout of frigate medical bays correctly. She also remembered the op quite vividly and had a pretty good idea who was beyond the door.

"Yes Marshal," came the monotone reply, as though the droid didn't have anything better to do than to greet every single person. "Please be sure to come back when you're ready for your check-up."

Not if I can help it, she thought to herself as she approached the Dark Jedi from behind. For the briefest of moments, she couldn't help but wonder if Thess- Azra sensed her approaching. The thought was quickly dismissed, the Dark Jedi having possessed a supernatural sense of their surroundings that wasn't at all unlike that feeling one got when they were being watched, except their senses were kicked into overdrive. Peering beyond the woman into the room beyond, Eri caught enough of a glimpse to see Wolfgang laying on a bed being prepped for surgery.

"What's the prognosis?" Eri asked softly when she was finally within earshot, unable to keep the concern out of her voice.

Emotion, yet peace... Azra had chided herself, fuming as she made her way out of the emergency room. Passion, yet serenity...Chaos, yet harmony. These flashes of thought, these attempts at motivation towards restraint, were admittedly only barely working. Silently, she wondered to herself what it meant that she was resorting to an ages-old mantra to try and keep herself from hurting someone; invariably, though, dwelling on the idea led to the further contemplation of actually hurting the man in question. No, strike that; hurting wasn't on the table. Murder, on the other hand...yes, that was the danger; the longer she thought about it, the more she wanted to rip him apart. At the moment, she didn't know which was worse: that she was feeling these thoughts, that it was one of the two who had turned her into a monster some time ago...or, perhaps most of all, that one of her friends was in there with him. Oh, how she hoped that incident was just a thing of the past...and how she madly wished she could heal the mind and body as one. It would have allowed her to dismiss the damned fool right away. The nightmare aboard the Shai still replayed in her mind; had, in fact, ever since she'd felt the doctor's presence. She could feel the deformities growing again, just beneath the surface; with it, she could feel the pain behind the transformation, resurfacing as though it were all happening again. All of the suffering, the agony...

...the hate. Turning briefly to look into the room, she cast her sightless gaze on the doctor's presence, and felt a scowl tug at the corners of her lips. He was only one of the two--at that, not even the senior one on the project--but she hated him. He was one of the few beings in the galaxy who had earned a hatred so sickeningly bitter...she could taste the bile rise in her throat, and fought hard to keep it down. Had he the power to sense her thoughts, he would have doubtless been struck hard by it, an electric void of negativity lashing out at his soul. How fortunate for him, then, that he could sense none of it...how fortunate, indeed. Still bearing the scowl, she turned away.

"Passion, yet serenity," she whispered as much as thought, only peripherally aware of the fact that she had actually given light voice to the words. Turning her attention to the sound behind her, she bit back a curse or two. Eri had gotten behind her during her moment of sinister thoughts, and had doubtless just heard that recitation. It would most likely sound ironic, the juxtaposition of words and spoken emotion...for what she had said, she sure hadn't sounded like the most tranquil of Jedi. No, she knew what her whisper had sounded like...it was the hushed tone of someone fighting a tidal wave of hatred. "Forgive me," she said, the warm twang of her casual voice lost amidst the emotion she fought to control. She turned to face the Surface Marshal, limping slightly through the motion. "I was not expecting you to come over, when I rightly should have. Best I can tell, the prognosis is pretty bad." With a sigh, Thess let her hands hang by her sides; one of them was stilll covered in blood...her blood. "I can heal most of the bodily injuries, if I get the chance to get near him for a while; I have enough control over the Force for that. It would just be a matter of assuming them directly. The mind...is another matter." Here, another sigh, though it was unclear whether this one was for catching breath, or taking a pause before giving worse news. "From what I sensed earlier, he has a concussion; I'm waiting for the doctor to confirm that before I consider anything else about him. Best case is he's out for a few weeks; worst, is that he's forced to retire after getting thrown for one loop too many. Meanwhile, I'm worried that the captain of this fancy little mercy ship is his fiancee, and I'm due to get eaten alive if she comes down here and sees him this way."

Calmly, Thess hooked a thumb towards the doorway. Without fail, a few drops of blood spattered onto the wall. "Feel free to go check in on him yourself, if you want; I've gotta rest up for a few minutes if I'm going to carry his scars in his place." Shaking her head slightly, the Dark Jedi sat down on one of the chairs beside the doorway, placing her hands on her knees as she sat. She then looked up briefly, turning the blindfolded eye sockets to Eri once more. "...And...I'm sorry, about everything that got between us. Dathomir, and all. I messed up...allowed myself to be what my masters had made me." With a cold, empty sigh, she turned back to her meditations. "...I let you down."

It was both a first, and not so much anything new, his thoughts concluded, listing about lazily in a battered mind. So many injuries...so much pain, condensed into a single form. In his mind's eye, he could see himself, a superimposed figure of perfect anatomical detail overlaying it upon his frame to show him where he lacked...well...being. There was a sense that, at some point, he had somehow lost quite a bit, and there was truly not much left before he was an abomination. No, he had lost that muchness about himself, if he was this close to being more construct than creature. The mind's incorporeal form shuddered at the recognition of that potential reality. More machine than man... It wasn't far away at all, he realized. Would he be able to live with such a fate? The mind then flashed back, practically diving into one of the words it had used on itself earlier. Creature. That was truly a funny way to look at him. The only problem that he truly had with the word was that it fit far too well. By anyone's standards, he was something more than human; the other aspect of him, however, was an animal...a beast...a 'creature'; and that, is what it made of him. He was a beast...a creature. He was, in short, someone's monster; it was just a matter of who held the infernal leash. Maybe you are your own... the thought began. Before it could go any further, it was broken by something else.

...White. It was so hot, it was white-hot. Pain, searing and distinct, in the chest of this phantasmal self. He looked down, only to find a hole in his chest where once flesh had been...small, yet plainly there, as though an old wound from a blaster shot. The wound didn't ooze, didn't sting like it had been freshly suffered, yet the pain was as blazing hot as metal from a forge. He remembered...Hell, what did he remember? The most recent event had been a fight of some sort, against a small band of lawless miscreants; he had taken the shot around then, he knew, but that felt like it was ages ago. The wound couldn't be that fresh...and he felt the pain, so he knew at least that he wasn't dead. Was he close to it? ...No; the pain would have been receding, not growing. It would have been transitioning the other way, becoming more tolerable over time as it finally ebbed from existence; instead, it was getting worse and worse, becoming more and more an impossible imposition. At least he knew, now, that he was alive. That, he mused as the pain became more distinct, was something.

The thoughts just all began to wonder how long that would last. Meanwhile, outside, the body remained as still as it had since being carried to the evacuation shuttle, not as long ago as the attached mind would have thought.

Arnold began looking around at the assembly of people here, and he was completely baffled at how they expected this man to get better with everyone here. He could not be prepped for surgery; he could not be sterilized with all these people all in their own degraded states as well. Especially the angry looking woman. But that was irrelevant, as his primary focus at this time was the critical patient that everyone was hovering around. So he had to regain control, and that’s when he had to flex his medical powers here. “Everyone needs to get out, and seek assistance if needed, or back out behind the curtain! This man is in severe condition, and no one is providing this man with an iota of help by standing over the hole in his chest. Now back up!”

Biting her lower lip, Eri felt her chest tighten as Thessalia spoke, thoughts about all the people who had come and gone resonating once again within her. When she spoke of the woman in charge of the vessel being the fiancee, Eri was taken partially aback, her green eyes widening in surprise for a brief moment as she glanced to the doorway leading to where the gravely wounded soldier lay. Regaining her composure, her gazed shifted back to Thessalia who sat heavily on a chair nearby after telling her she was free to look in on him. Before she could debate the matter to herself, Thess looked up at her, though the blindfold made it hard to tell if Thess was really aiming to look at her or something else. The question fast vanished as she apologized for everything that had happened.

Hanging her head, Eri felt her stomach sink deep within her. She was fast running out of people she could call friends at the rate she was going and it hurt, a lot. Partially because losing friends was never easy to begin with and also because it only lent more truth to what her Dad had always told her about knowing people and friends. "The only thing they're good for is watching them get shot because you were more concerned about them than the enemy at the other end of your scope."

Drawing in a breath, Eri smiled warmly. "Perhaps," she began as she focused on the blindfold, trying to envision Thess' eyes beneath them. "But I let you and everyone else down in turn. At least you have a reason for it. I've got nothing but myself to blame for everything that's happened, including..." Her voice trailed off, the smile fading, as she turned to look back at the doorway where one of her few remaining old friends lay. Before Thessalia could respond, Eri turned her head back to look at her and said with a soft sigh, "We're all a product of someone's deepest desires." Maybe Thess wouldn't catch onto the relevance of her words, but it was the best way Eri could express her acceptance of Thess' apology. "Now that you've realized that, I think its safe to say we can move on past this and worry about what lies ahead rather than behind us."

Taking a half-turn, Eri let her warm smile return. "Try to get some rest though, you won't do him, his wife-to-be or me any good if you die from blood loss or because you didn't look after yourself when you should be." Turning the remainder of the distance, she started walking away, adding over her shoulder, "Believe me when I say it's going to get a lot worse before it gets any better." She didn't like saying such gloomy things, but the way things were shaping up, Eri couldn't spin any illusions that played a cheerful song without striking a few nasty chords first.

Calmly, Azra watched Eri go, the words lingering longer than their speaker. 'Deepest desires,' eh? she thought, her mind's voice bitter at the awkward apology. Then who was the sick fuck that conjured me? Shaking her head, the Dark Jedi tried her best to let it go, vaguely aware that yet more blood was spattering lightly from her. She should probably do what the other woman said: get checked out, keep safe, and rest. The issues on Fwillsving had, after all, been quite the ordeal; however, far be it from her, a creature of practically living darkness itself, to shy away from action. Emotion was still running rampant through her as well, causing her to see things through the many lenses of her darker thoughts. One, chief among these, was the hate that she had fought down earlier. It surged, it flowed...deep within her, it raged, searching eagerly for a way out. It wanted...she didn't know, exactly, what it wanted. In the end, she didn't care. It wanted something, but she didn't dare to find out what that was. There were, at the moment, other reasons for her to consider the source of that hate, and reasons that didn't necessarily require his demise or even a measure of suffering on his part. Sighing, she turned to the room, bracing herself for what would happen when she entered. Doctors didn't shout for a clean room for sport, and this seemed like a nasty time for a drill; she imagined he had a justifiably good reason for being so onerously loud at the moment.

There was a scowl on her face, the look burned into that sightless expression of hers as though carved into durasteel with a laser-cutter. Catching Arnold, she stared at him, wishing for a moment that the demonic red eyes were back to lock with his own and send a clearer message. "When you're done trying to wake the dead," she said, her voice harsher than a Tattooine wind, "regale me with the damages."

Unsurprisingly, the doctor didn't look up, and instead just continued with his businesss. "You'll see them," he said, "if and when his next of kin share the report with you. Assuming he has any."

It took a mighty surge of will to suppress the growing frustration that came with dealing with the man. She already harbored towards him a degree of animosity eclipsed only by her hate for the man who was their Supreme Commander. It took another great act of will to refrain from gripping him with the Force and smashing him headlong into a bulkhead...which, right now, she was fast growing livid enough to tear through with her teeth. "Emotion, yet peace..." she hissed through clenched teeth, fighting the darker urges as they surfaced. It was of little use, the recitation of the ancient code; anger still flashed through her, flowing like a tidal wave. Behind it, there was concern as she looked at the injured man on the bed; one of her few true friends in the Federation...one of the few who hadn't cast her away, even after she'd been away for so long, lost to stars-knew-what... ...in the scheme of things, she didn't deserve so good a friend, and that's what made it hurt more, to see him like this. "I hate you, you know..." she responded again, at last. "You, and the other one...for what the two of you did to me." Another sigh slowly hissed out of her. "But I'll still gladly make your day easier...for his sake, not for yours. Stand aside, doctor; leave him to me."

"Spoken like I give a damn about you," the doctor replied, finally bothering to look up. As he did so, Azra imagined a glimmer of recognition flashed briefly through his eyes. "An amusing concept, to be sure. Now if you really care about this man as much as you want me to think, you're going to wash those hands of yours before you come even a step closer."

Even as he gave the instruction--a rare moment, she thought to herself, that she allowed someone like him to give her an order--the blood was already disappearing from her hands, moving at the behest of the Force. Yet what was perhaps most alarming was not that it was leaving her hands so readily, but rather where it was going. Slowly but surely, the copious volume of blood that had flowed down her arms, all along her hands...was flowing up, against gravity...was flowing back into the wounds. Within seconds, the hands themselves were clean; a few more passed, and she could feel the wounds sealing as though stitched up by a practiced surgeon. "No argument here," she hissed, steel in her voice. A cold chill surrounded her as she made her way to the patient's prep table...

...and for an instant, something passing for sympathy flicked across her face, like a phantom in the night. "If I didn't know any better, missy, I'd say you two were lovers." And right there, with the doctor's voice, the phantom was gone, replaced by a scowl that she turned on the man in a heartbeat, baring fang-like teeth. "...Definitely lovers."

The remark drew more scorn for just a second or two before Azra positioned herself to get to work. "No, just close friends...not that I deserve a friend so loyal." She sighed, softly, the sound little more than a hiss. "I am, however, worried that his lover might have gotten stationed aboard this ship." Carefully, she entered the doctor's mind--which, in her estimation, was a nightmarish jungle of sin even before she got in there--and placed within it the name and image of the woman...perhaps based on a fear that saying it would bring her running. "Find out if she's aboard at all; if she is...buy me some damned time."

Arnold was a little annoyed that the woman from the Shai was essentially trying to do his job for him. He was actually shocked that she listened to him this time, as she was more of the take charge type. But that changed very quickly as she in a harsh whisper said, "I am, however, worried that his lover might have gotten stationed aboard this ship. Find out if she's aboard at all; if she is...buy me some damned time."

A brief image flashed in Arnold's head and he was a bit unsure of what the woman had just done to him. But Arnold growled out an answer back, "You're worried about the girlfriend, and you say you're only close friends... Now you want me to leave my charge here and go gallivanting off to find her? That's going to what make her or you feel better? Let's put it this way, I have yet to lose a patient, and I do not plan to. So in an effort to buy you some time, I'll have some of my staff keep an eye out."

Arnold relayed the description he had burned into his memory from the rather miffed woman that was attempting to do his job to his staff. They were ordered to send back updates if or when she was closing in towards the medical bay with the news that her boyfriend, or whatever he was to her. Arnold was used to cut and dry circumstances, such as saving someone's life or tending to a wound. But this was getting cryptic now.

To his credit, Arnold had the positively fortunately distinction of not being the central focus of Azra's attention; as such, whatever blathering commentary he had offered was promptly forgotten around the time she stopped talking directly to him, and she seemingly didn't hear a word he had to offer. Her concentration rested, instead, on the man who lay before her on the operating table, his blood seemingly everywhere except in his body. He was far gone, that much was certain...light breathing, faint and barely audible against the backdrop of noise from the medical lab's machinery; an intense pallor, as though a fresh-pressed sheet of undyed linen; it was perhaps a stroke of luck that he was still alive...if one could call this living.

Yet there was the Force. For all that there were people in the galaxy who loathed it and what it typified, there was still the power of the Force, undeniable in its strength. In the wrong hands, the Force was a weapon that could kill countless beings before an observer could bat an eyelash; in the right hands, it could shield those lives and countless more. Bloodied as they were from carrying him, hers were...well, better than none at all. Empty, concealed eye sockets looked down at the injured man as she stood over him, hovering overhead from behind the table; ice began to swirl gently around her hands as she pressed them against his shoulders, the freezing mist expanding to enshroud his wounded form as well. Slowly, it began expanding, filling the cracks in his flesh where blood had earlier flowed out from him.

It hadn't been terribly long ago, but every time she used the Force to heal someone, the incident on Cinnigar came to mind...an incident that filled her thoughts these days with a sickening revulsion. There, in the depths of her memory, she saw his face, smiling softly...the Primarch, gesturing the single sickly sweet lie that had made her so hate him. Even his dangerously psychotic apprentice hadn't earned so much of her scorn--and wantonly murdering a brother-in-arms had, without a doubt, pissed her off; at least the murderer had been honest about it. Perhaps, some day, the memory would fade...for now, however, it was still there; still there, because it still had some effect on how she was able to heal through the Force. Her grasp of the ability was imperfect by her own admission, but she had found a way to compensate, not long after the initial encounter.

That method was, ironically, through pain. Healing herself was one thing; healing another was a willful act, because it meant taking their pain, and bearing a measure of it as her own. The process alleviated some of it right away, but more was transferred than outright removed, invariably resulting in her putting herself out of commission for a while every time she bothered to relieve someone of a major wound. Still, it was better than nothing...and while the process was a far cry from perfect, it was enough to make her at least feel a measure of pride in her accomplishment, in that regard. Hope you're taking notes, asshole! she caught herself thinking, the words bringing a fanged smirk to her face. Truthfully, though, she really hoped he wasn't; the flaws in the technique were still for her to master, some day. For now, there was working through them...

Arnold watched on as the horrid woman ignored him, he was definitely pissed about it. But there was only so much he could do to stop her, and wasting the time it takes to attempt to subdue her and then make sure the patient was not put in harm’s way. Well ensuring that it would all happen in that manner, it was not going to happen. So he had to give in, more so for the safety of his patient. Which was ironic, as he had to stop her for the safety of his patient. Then just as quickly as he had those thoughts, he watched on as she pressed those hands, the non-disinfected hands. Somehow she had managed to make them clean and unbloodied, by some sort of healing he guessed. The fact that she managed to heal herself, mean that perhaps she could actually do as she claimed. So Dr. Davis stood by and peered on as her hands began to close in on Wolfgang’s hardly breathing body.

Laurel stormed through the medical bay as if a woman possessed, her face clearly reflecting her distress though she did her best to ignore the confused looks that the various medical personnel granted her as she brushed past. It was only until that she had rubbed the area beneath her engagement ring raw that she had even registered that she had been wringing her hands in worry.

It had been no secret on the ship that she and the Brigadier were engaged, and she felt as if everyone she had passed on the way to see him was expecting her to burst into a maudlin little display of hysterics; behavior, she assumed, that supposedly typified what a silly little noble girl ought to do once something did not go her way. Though the conflicted look on her superior's face upon telling her the news that Wolfgang had been admitted into medical made Laurel's skin heat in alarm, she still refused to be escorted to see him like a lost little girl.

It cannot be that serious.

Laurel wandered the halls in a daze, her hopes becoming dark as she passed each ward. Her eyes glazed over once they passed over the words 'Maternity', and she willed herself not to start crying, tilting her face upward to abate her tears.

Please, do not let it be that serious...

She stopped abruptly when she glimpsed a dark head of hair bowed over in concentration; moving closer she spotted the familiar face of her fiance, her own blanching when she realized who it was. Wolfgang already looked as if he had already been brushed by death, his skin a waxen pallor with an ungodly amount of blood smeared both over himself and those standing present. She retched audibly and fell to her knees when she saw the gaping wound in his chest, sure that he was already dead. Light began to dance behind her skull.

Don’t you dare faint, you stupid girl.

Laurel took a moment to gain her composure then wordlessly stood back upright to let her eyes sweep over the chaos through the window before her. The operating team and medical droids were assembled about Wolfgang on the table, transfixed upon Azra, with her hands working upon him to do gods knew what. The attending physician was apparently letting the Dark Jedi do as she wished, though from the look on his face it seemed even he was quite reluctant to let her do so.

Laurel eyed the ungloved hands pressed against Wolfgang, then flicked her gaze back toward the doctor. Her anxiety suddenly burst into anger at the scene, untempered, and the Lieutenant moved before she could stop herself. She pushed her way in through the door, breaking the stunned silence with several quick footsteps up to Wolfgang’s side on the table.

"What in the hell is going on here?"

{One should never confuse duty for loyalty. One either purposefully serves, or serves a purpose.}

The song of the ice was a slow one, constant in both tone and tempo; under her sway, it sought out the wounds that ravaged her friend, freezing their process with cold, almost ruthless efficiency. Each one seemed to transfer of its own accord, though in truth they were torn from the unconscious man bodily, almost violently, by the ice that permeated the core of his being; each injury, dripping with the crimson fluid of life itself, whisked away by the fury of a being of near-limitless power. The anger that swept through her presence--through his, in turn, born of this dark connection--offered no mercy, no surcease of struggle and effort. Every wound appeared to crystallize at its very core, until even the gaping hole left from so much blaster shot seemed more a mass of permanent chill than the scarlet scar it appeared to be to the naked eye.

Yet for all that there was cold, there had to be warmth to balance it. Thess, herself, stood at the epicenter of that flame, her soul bathing in the radiant heat of her own fury; the fire raged, and her hatred, her determination, raged with it. Slowly, the ice made crystalline shards of the brigadier's wounds, trapping each one in the prison of frigid despair. The fire lashed out in turn, quickly searing each and every injury, melting them away into nothingness; as it worked, it found itself--as always--in need of a recourse...a place for the injuries to go, for the fire to burn. And so it turned to its master, her anger, her hatred...her disgust always fixated on herself: her failures, as a mother, and as a wife, were as a fuel for the blaze as it broiled away the pain of others, and charred it into her willing flesh. Deep within her, the sorrowful spirit burned, countless wounds leaving their marks upon her body; the soul's lungs were singed together, barely able to support the air that still passed through them, and her heart beat weakly, faintly, as what precious little strength it had was robbed by the flame. On the outside, blood began to drip slowly from unseen cuts, each one reflected by a subtle twitch as they made their deep, incisive verdict against her, condemning her for her sins.

"What in the Hell is going on here?"

It was a question the Dark Jedi hadn't expected, though perhaps it was also something she had expected ever since she'd begun the arduous task of healing the man who lay before her. The work was delicate, and more than just metaphorically painstaking, and required the utmost attention to detail to place the transferred pain in just the right place--an element that slowed the healing process itself, somewhat--but it was work that could only just barely survive sloppily if it was ever interrupted...and was worse still if she was only briefly distracted, such as had happened here. The coil of fire lashed around her soul, briefly left to itself with the lack of guidance, and danced along her spirit's manifestation, unclear of where to go without her focus to guide it. Outwardly, the Dark Jedi shuddered visibly as the horrible pain wracked her body--horrible, if only for the fact that it dared to do so uncontrolled. It was this pain, this uncontrolled variable in an environment that thrived on order, that brought her out of the trance. Her heart throbbed with pain, her soul reeling from the shock of this sudden, violent transgression...

...and had she eyes, they would have fixated on Laurel'eiden with the fury of a thousand suns. "I am trying to save your beloved from dying..." For a second, she sighed, the pause seeming to come from deep within the sorrowful wellspring of a tired soul. "...the only way I know how. Leave me to it, and I swear he'll be back to you soon...even if I have to bleed to my last to make it happen."

Arnold was shocked at the events unfolding. The man on the table was slowly being healed, while the mad woman was getting injured again. Perhaps she may be able to save the man’s life, but the shrieking girlfriend barged into the room like a raging rancor. Then girlfriend looked like she was ready to kill, but Arnold had only one course of action. He moved towards the table, and pulled back the girlfriend a few steps to explain what was going on.

“Ma’am, while I can see you’re clearly no more happy than I am in this situation. Disturbing that mad woman, who is doing who knows what medically to that man. It seems as though it is working, as you can see from the diastolic and systolic pressure he seems to almost be stabilizing. So as reluctant as I am to say this, she is doing something right. But what I cannot figure out. So the least we can do is humor her, as at least a real doctor is present for if she fails. While this does not sound comforting at all, she has done more good than I could have up to this point. So the least we could do is spare her a few more minutes before I may have to intervene to see through the ultimate care of your loved one here.”